


Pipe Dreams

by JayceCarter



Series: Random Fallout Shenanigans [5]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Growing Old, No Smut, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:19:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Nora is getting old, and Hancock. . . isn't. He says he doesn't care, but Nora can't handle the idea of him having to watch her age, and eventually die, but can she find a way around it? Or will he end up just losing her sooner?





	

“Hey, sunshine. You got up early.”

 

Nora slid her fingers through her hair, capturing any stray ones that had escaped her pony tail, trying to make something of nothing. “Morning, John. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

 

He leaned in and pressed a rough kiss to her cheek.

 

Nora touched the spot. The skin had thinned over the years, lost its elasticity. She could still remember the smoothness, the firmness, the first-time John pressed his ruined lips there. Could he tell? Did he care?

 

He didn’t act as if he did, but John wouldn’t hurt her by admitting it, either.

 

“You alright? You seem down.”

 

Her response tumbled from her lips, almost like she’d picked up the conversation that ran in her head. “How can you still love me?”

 

He froze. “What are you talking about?”

 

“It’s been twenty years, John. I’m not stupid. I don’t- I don’t look the same. No one looks at fifty like they did at thirty. I’m, well, I’m old John, and you’re not.”

 

He crept forward, each step slow. He didn’t wear the coat anymore, or the hat. They hadn’t held up over the decades, and after he’d stepped down in Goodneighbor, he hadn’t needed them anymore. Nora missed them.

 

“None of that matters to me.”

 

“How can it not matter? It matters to me.”

 

He brushed a hand against her cheek, and his fingers came away with a tear. “What’s this about? Idea’s like this don’t just pop up one day.”

 

Nora paced in front of him. “I’ve been thinking this for a while, since the first time I saw wrinkles. I’m going to die, John. I’m going to keep getting older and then I’m going to fucking die, and you aren’t. You’re going to watch me wither and break and turn into nothing. I can’t face looking at you and realizing you don’t love me anymore, can’t handle that moment when you look at me and you can’t see who I used to be anymore.” She gasped, sucking in air, realizing she hadn’t been breathing at all during her tirade.

 

John reached out but she pulled away, flinching like he’d burn her. He wouldn’t burn her, but he’d convince her she was wrong, his words smooth and tempting and always perfect. But she wasn’t wrong, not this time.

 

“Sunshine, I don’t care about any of that. I’m never gonna look at you and not want you. I waited my whole fucking life for you.”

 

“No, you didn’t. That’s my point. You’re wasting your whole fucking life on me. I’m old, John. You’ve got as much time as you want left but I don’t, and I can’t stand here and watch you waste it on me.” She backed away, avoiding the way he reached for her. She couldn’t run, not like she used to. There’d been a time when she could outmaneuver him, when she could match him shot for shot, but those days had ended a while back.

 

He leapt forward and gathered her into his arms, pressing her face against his neck. He hushed her, making the noises Nora used to make to calm Shaun as a baby. Her knees sagged, and he held her up. He always did that, always held her when she couldn’t do it anymore. After she’d blown the Institute to hell and killed her own son he’d just held her, let her collapse against him.

 

But that was the thing, he was always going to be that strong. It was never going to change, and she couldn’t do that, she couldn’t be that.

 

He guided her back to the bed. He laid her down, then sat beside her, running his fingers through her hair, trying to clear the tears that ran down her face and soaked into the blanket.

 

He wanted to fix this, but he couldn’t.

 

Only Nora could fix this.

 

#

 

John dropped his head into his hands, grateful Nora had fallen asleep, fitful as it was.

 

Fuck, he should have seen this coming. Looking back, the signs had been there. She’d found old hair dye, trying to rid the gray that had grown into her black hair. She pretended her joints didn’t ache, even when she limped.

 

Yeah, she’d grown older. But he didn’t fucking care. None of it mattered to him. When he looked at her, he still saw the woman who had walked into his town and gunned down Finn. Fuck her skin and her hair and anything else she worried about. None of it mattered.

 

Her dying? Yeah, that mattered. That kept him up at night, had him panicking. He didn’t know how he could lose her, how he’d survive it. Before her, everything had drifted, nothing solid, wading through life. But now? Now things mattered, and nothing mattered more than her.

 

She gasped, the tiny sound of her body still trying to ease away from the sobs that had wracked her all evening. 

 

John leaned back and closed his eyes, wishing for what wasn’t the first time, that he’d never taken the damned drug that turned him ghoul. If he were still human, he’d age with her. They’d grow old and they’d die and that was fine with him.

 

He dreamed while he slept, back to the first time she’d flirted with him, when he’d admitted his ‘less pure than usual’ thoughts about her. She’d blushed, tucking hair behind her ear, and he’d lost his nerve, telling them they ought to get going. Fuck, she’d amazed him, even then. It had only grown with time, when he saw her strength, when he realized what she’d move to get what she wanted.

 

He had to make it right, had to fix this. His eyes opened and he groaned against the morning light. “Morning, Sunshine,” he rasped as he rolled over.

 

The bed was empty, and he knew then, Nora had left.

 

#

 

Nora sat across from Nick, moving slow, ignoring the pains in her back. The trip used to be easy, but things didn’t come so easy anymore.

 

“Good to see you, Doll. It’s been a long time.”

 

“Trip takes a lot out of me now. Got to say, I miss being able to teleport everywhere. Shoulda’ kept the Institute around just for that.”

 

“Who cares about slavery and shadowy conspiracies when put against having to walk everywhere.”

 

“Pretty much my thought.” Nora nodded at the filed stacked up beside Nick. “Where’s Ellie?”

 

“Same old story. She found a fella, got married, had some babies. She’s living on a little farm outside of Fort Haggen.” Nick smiled, the sadness and pride enough she looked away, like she had peered in on a private moment not meant for her. Ellie had always been the daughter Nick couldn’t have.

 

“So you’re all alone here?”

 

“Not all the time. Piper visits me, and I got enough work to stay busy. Hell, Doll, I should’ve come visited you sooner. Shouldn’t have made you make the trip.”

 

“Hey, you’re older than I am.”

 

He laughed, leaning back. “Let’s not play that game again, and just agree we’re both pretty damned old. So what brings you here?”

 

Nora sighed, pulling her sweater around her. The chill seeped into her in a way it hadn’t before. She’d lost much of the muscle she’d developed, and now the nights had turned brutal. “I need Dr. Amari.”

 

“You sick?”

 

“Nothing like that. I just-“ she hesitated. Nick wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t agree. “-I need to talk to her. I know she isn’t in Goodneighbor anymore. Any ideas?”

 

Nick frowned, tapping his metal fingers against the desk. “Last I heard, she’d moved out of The Memory Den and in with the Railroad. You’d never believe it, but she and Tom hit it off.”

 

“You’re right, I don’t believe it. Tom wouldn’t let her touch him without a full body scan.”

 

“Hey, people in love let a lot of things slide, or so I’ve heard. Speaking of which, why isn’t John here?”

 

“He’s busy.”

 

Nick lifted an eyebrow to call her out on the lie, but didn’t address it.

 

“Railroad still in the same place?”

 

“Last I heard. Without the Institute or the Brotherhood, no real reason for them to move. I’ll go with you.”

 

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.” She left out the part neither of them had spoken about, the part where he loved her, and she loved him too.

 

But he could never win against John. Nick was steady, but John was fire, and she’d wanted nothing more than to burn.

 

“No inconvenience at all, darling. Been a long time since I got to tag along on an adventure with you. I think it’s about time.”

 

#

 

John shoved the desk, files falling to the floor. He’d just missed them. The damned coffee was still hot.

 

Of course she’d come here. As soon as he’d realized she’d been gone, he’d known. If Nora ran away, it would always be to Nick.

 

Not that John was afraid of losing her to the synth, after twenty years you got over those kinds of worries. It just stung. She’d run away from him, and right to Nick.

 

“Redecorating?” Piper leaned against the doorway, nodding toward the mess he’d made.

 

“You seen her?”

 

“Yeah. She stopped in, said hello. I think she knew I’d print all her secrets if I found out she came to town and didn’t say hi.”

 

“You still run that rag? Figured being Mayor would have taken up all your time.”

 

“I’d print it to punish her. What’s going on, John? She comes to town without you? She didn’t look right, all wound up. What’s happened?”

 

“Fuck if I know.” John rubbed his hand across his face. “You know where they went?”

 

“Yeah. Talk to me, first.” Piper had changed too, hell, they all had. Well, everyone but Hancock and Nick. She’d aged, given up her silly coat, looked damned professional even. She’d run Diamond City in a way that made him realize he’d been a shit Mayor. He had no head for trade agreements and living conditions. Piper had done alright, digging out the prejudice, turning the Great Green Jewel into something good finally.

 

“She’s finally realized she’d gonna die first. She’s trying to save me from having to watch her. I don’t know what she’s doing, if she’s trying to find a way out of this all, if she’s running away for good, or if she’s just having one last adventure before she blows her brains out. I just gotta find her, I gotta fix this.”

 

Piper looked down at her own hands, stretching them, closing them. “Yeah, I get that. I’m not even in love with one of you immortal types, but growing old? It sucks. They headed off to the old Railroad HQ. Asked me about patrols in the area. Good luck, John.”

 

#

 

Nora smiled at Deacon. The man hadn’t changed all that much. Sure, he was old, and he hadn’t swapped his face, the only thing she thanked God for. She didn’t know if she could look into someone elses face and see him.

 

“Charmer.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. “Whenever you come knocking, I know we’re going to blow something up. What’s the target? I’d love to take out that ship in the building, they ruin my view.”

 

“No blowing anything up this time, sorry. You’ll have to make due with the view.”

 

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you hadn’t helped move the damned ship from one building to another.”

 

“Hey, you can’t blame a girl for trying. I’m actually looking for Dr. Amari. Nick said she was here?”

 

Deacon nodded. “Yeah, sure. You sick or something? I know Dr. Carrington is a dick, but he’s better with people than Amari. Her specialty is the gears and machinery type.”

 

“I know. She’s who I need.”

 

Deacon’s eyes narrowed, and he set a hand on her arm. “You don’t mean what I think you do, right? Because, I got to say, it’s a bad idea.”

 

“I have to. I don’t have any other options.”

 

Deacon looked up at Nick, then back to Nora. “Where’s John?”

 

“Home.”

 

“So, I’m gonna guess he doesn’t approve.”

 

“He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t need to.”

 

“What if it doesn’t work? You don’t even want to give him a proper goodbye?”

 

Nora shook her head. “He’d stop me, he’d say that he’d rather have the time we have together than risk losing that, too.”

 

Deacon sighed, letting her arm go. “But you’re not gonna listen to that, because you never do, isn’t that right, Charmer?”

 

Nora’s lips quirked up, but she couldn’t find happiness in it. “Pretty much.”

 

#

 

John pointed his finger at the agent by the door to the secret entrance. “You let me in or I swear I’ll make those ferals start looking like friendlies, yeah?”

 

“Stay there or I’ll shoot!”

 

He growled. Nora was so close, just through that fucking door, if only the fuckwit in front of him would let him pass. “Get Deacon!”

 

“Don’t use his name!”

 

“Or what? I’ve seen every face and every costume that man has, trust me, he’s got no secrets from me.”

 

Deacon’s laugh calmed John. “Don’t go scaring the new recruits, huh?”

 

“Your boys are a little skittish.”

 

“Well, they don’t have nearly feral mayors chasing down wayward wives very often, do they? Come on, John.”

 

“She’s here, then?”

 

Deacon nodded, walking with a cane in his left hand. Fuck, when had that happened? “Yeah, she’s here. You’ve gotten quick, or she’s gotten slow. Figured she’d have at least a day lead on you.” They reached the hallway before the main area of the HQ, where Deacon stopped and turned on John. Damn, the man had eyes that nailed you when you weren’t expecting it. He’d always seen too much. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it? That she’s gotten slow?”

 

“Not a problem for me. What’s she doing here?”

 

“She’s in with Dr. Amari.”

 

“What? Hoping you all discovered some anti-aging cure. The only thing that did that was the serum, and it’s long gone.”

 

Deacon shook his head, setting his free hand on John’s arm. “She’s not here to see Dr. Carrington. She didn’t see Dr. Sun in Diamond City. She needs Dr. Amari.”

 

The pieces clicked, and John went bolting toward the back of the HQ.

 

#

 

Nora would never forget that snarl, forget the way Nick and a few Agents tried to hold John back. “Don’t do this!”

 

Nora waved the men off, and John attacked her like a feral, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. “Fuck, sunshine, I thought I lost you. Don’t do this, please, I can’t lose you.”

 

“But you’re gonna lose me. If not today, then it’ll be in a few years, maybe a few decades if I’m really fucking lucky.”

 

“So give me those decades, please. Don’t steal ‘em from me for a pipedream.”

 

Nora lifted her face and kissed him, even when he wouldn’t move, when he wouldn’t return the kiss. His breath hammered from his lungs, his body shaking.

 

“I have to do this. I trust her, it’ll work.”

 

“And if it doesn’t? Then I’m here, alone. What the fuck am I going to do alone?”

 

“What you would have had to do anyway. I don’t want you for a few more years, I want you forever, John.” She pulled away, his hands sliding off her like he couldn’t hold on, like he was drowning.

 

Damnit, this hurt worse than anything, the despair on his face. He knew he couldn’t stop her, and that’s why she didn’t want him here.

 

Leave it to John to do things his own fucking way no matter her plan, though.

 

“Are you ready?” Dr. Amari stood beside the memory loungers, Tom behind her, messing with the terminals. Yeah, if she trusted anyone, it was these two. They could put the whole damned Institute to shame.

 

“Almost.” Nora looked back at John. “I know you don’t want me to do this, but can you do something for me?”

 

“Anything, just please, don’t do this. Fuck, sister, I'll beg, anything you want.”

 

She pressed a hand to his cheek. “I have to. I want a kiss, John, please. If this doesn’t work, if something happens, I want a kiss, first. I want you to kiss me like it was the first time, like I was young still, like we were just at the start of this whole damned ride, like I’m that girl who walked into Goodneighbor twenty years ago.”

 

John pulled her against him, scarred hands sliding behind her neck, angling her face up. “You’ve always been that girl to me, Sunshine.” He kissed her, and it helped remind her what she didn’t want to lose.

 

#

 

“Sit down, John. You’re scaring people.”

 

“Fuck you, Nick. I can’t believe you agreed to help her with this.”

 

“I don’t like it anymore than you do, but this is what she wants. You know as well as I do that our Doll does what she wants.”

 

“She isn’t ours. She’s mine. You never got that through your skull, you know that?” John turned a glare on Nick. “Is that what this is? Hoping this gives you a second chance? Think she’ll wake up and want you?”

 

Nick sighed, a broken sound that stole John’s anger. Fuck, he’d won a long time ago. No reason to kick the synth.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s okay. I’m not doing this because I think she’ll want me. We been through that a long time ago, she’s never wanted me, not like she wants you. I’m okay with that. But, John, if you’d have seen her in my office? She’s drowning, she’s dying right now anyway. She said a few decades? She doesn’t have a few years before that sort of grief takes her down. You want to keep her for any amount of time, this is it. This is the only way it’ll happen.”

 

“What if she doesn’t make it?”

 

Nick set his hand on John’s shoulder, squeezing hard. “Then we’ll all be here to help you through it, okay?”

 

John sucked in a breath, trying to keep his stomach from crawling out of his fucking mouth.

 

“Hancock?”

 

John leapt to his feet at the sound of Amari’s voice. “How did it go? What happened? Is she okay?”

 

He didn’t hear a word she said as a woman stepped out from behind her. He didn’t recognize her, couldn’t see anything of the woman he loved in this gen3 synth body. Her eyebrows drew together, her steps slow. “John?”

 

That voice. Fuck, he knew that voice. Then he saw the eyes. Nora’s eyes. It didn’t matter that they’d changed color, shape, none of that mattered. They were still Nora’s. Their years together, her biting sense of humor, her temper, it all sat in those eyes.

 

He charged through the room, slamming them backward into the wall, dragging his cheek against her skin. “Nora, fuck, Nora. Are you okay? You’re in there, yeah?”

 

She set her hands on his cheeks and pushed him back to look into his eyes. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m okay. Is this, is this okay? I look different.”

 

“I told you before, I don’t fucking care how you look. I just want you.”

 

“Well, lucky you, now you’ve got me for good.”


End file.
